MAY 22, 2026
GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
If you’ve been to a single horror movie in the past few months and early enough for the trailers, you’ve probably been intrigued by Passenger, which shows a single sequence from the film and nothing else. Now it’s finally here and… well, I can see why they opted to showcase this bit and not the main characters or story or anything like that, because this five minute sequence is pretty much as good as it gets. And, unsurprisingly, it’s also the opening scene, so the following 90 minutes are all downhill.
This particular ad isn't available on Youtube for some reason (just a more traditional trailer, which I actually never saw until now), so accept my brief synopsis: a guy pulls over to let his passenger pee. Peeing guy hears a honk. He thinks it’s his impatient friend, but when he returns to the car his friend is gone. He gets in the car and then the friend’s body smashes through the windshield. He drives off and keeps seeing the same scary person on the side of the road, as if he’s driving in circles. Then the scary guy goes RAWR! And that’s it. It’s an effective little short film, something you’d watch on Youtube or at a festival and then roll your eyes when the director says he wants to expand it to a feature.
At least in most of those cases they never make it (and sometimes they do and it turns out pretty good! Like Smile or Lights Out, though weirdly both of those examples have some problematic takes on how to deal with mental health issues). In this case, we get a worst case scenario kind of thing, because the rest of the movie is about two OTHER people being menaced by the same thing over and over, with the apparition inexplicably taking a lot longer to get the job done that he did with our opening folks. Our heroes are a young couple who have - in the year 2026, mind you - decided to quit their jobs and live the “van life,” which is an actual thing that people do. They decide to live in their vans forever, park in 24 hour gym lots and such so they don’t get towed, drive around the country using funds that are apparently unlimited, and basically ensure the audience will never identify with them.
Anyway, these two people (Maddie and… her boyfriend. I want to say Tyler? Let’s go with Tyler) come across the guy who kept driving past the ghosty dude, as he races past them and then crashes further up the road. So they stop to help, and as a result now they are haunted by the ghost (“The Passenger”), who proceeds to do something scary every five minutes, often accompanied by a loud sound, until a feature length is reached and they do some nonsense to get rid of it. It’s one of those movies that is seemingly written by committee, designed for people to half watch with the other eye on their cell phone, and probably most effective on easily startled cats.
And if you’re a scholar of such things, then you must be thinking “OK, but surely some veteran actor will slum through a few scenes to provide exposition, right?” You are correct! Melissa Leo gets the “honor” here, and also the movie’s best line by far when she bellows that the Passenger is a “Highwayman from hell!” Along with the opening, and a decent scene about midway through where they use a projector (showing Roman Holiday!) as a light to look around for the villain, it’s the rare time in the movie I was actually entertained.
The rest of the time? Oof. I mean, if you’re a longtime reader here you know these kind of jump scare fests don’t exactly set my heart racing, but even if I’m not reacting to the BOO! moments I can usually still enjoy the movie as long as the characters are interesting to watch or the backstory is in some way intriguing. Neither is the case here; the lore behind the ghost seems stolen from a particularly uninspired episode of Supernatural, like one of those ones maybe 2/3 through a season where they have to fill some time and Dean would say “There’s nothing on Angel Radio, let’s work a case!” And Sam would be like “OK, so in Missouri three people have been killed on I-whatever in the past month…” But at least that would be over with in half the time.
And then the characters are as bland as they come. She’s not sure she wants to live a life on the road, and he just wants to get married. That’s about all we get out of them, and since they are our only actual characters (Leo only appears in two scenes) there’s precious little suspense in the repetitive scare scenes, because we know they’ll be fine until the conclusion, so with every single appearance the Passenger becomes a less effective villain. So we have an incompetent ghost chasing two people who are the movie equivalent of the couples in the picture that comes with the photo frame. It’d be disappointing under any circumstances, but I pity the poor sods who chose this over Obsession or even Scream 7 if it’s still playing anywhere. At least that one started off strong for an hour or so.
Given that Paramount has a struggling streaming channel, I’m kind of shocked they didn’t just send it straight there, where the LOUD NOISES! would probably generate a few decent letterboxd ratings from people who weren’t really paying attention to it (and/or actual van life people, who perhaps a. don’t see a lot of horror movies to know better and B. don’t go out to the movies too much but almost assuredly have access to a friend’s streaming account). It’s just sad that it’s another letdown from André Øvredal, who made the terrific Autopsy of Jane Doe but has proven less effective with each subsequent genre movie (the decent but uneven Scary Stories, the disappointing Last Voyage of the Demeter, and now this, an actual chore). It’s not even worth making the effort, but why not: feel free to skip this and the first 55 sequels and go straight to Snipes.
What say you?
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